Really, Grand Jury?

Let me just say, when George W. Bush gets it (well, sorta), it is not rocket science, friends.

What would a real racist be like?

You really just cannot make this stuff up, even remotely. First white cops arrest African American Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates for breaking into his own house (OK, for getting annoyed when they accused him breaking into his own house). Then reporters ask Obama, who is trying to have a press conference about a little thing like health care at the time, what he thinks. Well, duh. What does any sane person think?

Black = criminal

(or so it seems from the police response)

Check it out!

(OK, in case you haven't heard the actual story, here it is. [p.s. Read the comments, too - they're fracking nuts!])

More on "tea parties"

Yes, it's a pun.

Sorry, my basic critique of this "tax day tea party" embarrassment is below, but I just couldn't resist these -er- insightful comments from the Illinois "tea party" site, which I think show their true colors:

"I stand for preserving the American way. I am against this socialistic regime the uninformed have elected. I’ll be there with others!"

"[...] liberals are projecting a very rabid socialist agenda."

And when one lone voice chimed in to criticize the war, "Uh, [...] 'failed Iraq war'? Did you miss something? Like the success in Iraq? Democracy? Come on down to the tea party, be sure to wear your Obama slobbering t-shirt so we know who you are … maybe by April 15 you’ll come to your senses when you see how (N)Obama is rapidly destroying our country."

"I will be there will bells on. I am so tired of what Obama is doing to this country! We need to take back our country and renew our pride in being a true American."

"I am in P-Town also Carol and Bobbie, and if we can get an April 15th Tax Tea Party here in the land of Obamunism Central, I can be there. Of course, I also view April 15th as National Buy A Gun Day, so it might have to happen after Pekin Gun Store opens."

"Operation Support Our Troops organization will be there and is requesting perhaps a donation to bring since their inventory is low for the troops. Come with American Flags and signs - enough is enough! Get our country back! Help us with this 2009 American Revolution - stand strong, stand united and let us make history!"

"No more government funding of a 'bridge to nowhere', no more providing non-essential medical care for illegals, no more research grants 'to study the Kentucky toad' (see Stimulus bill), or public funding of 'artists', No more public financing of insurance for those that CHOOSE to live in high casualty risk areas, like beach front property."

I want to be clear that criticism or anger directed at Obama is not necessarily racist - there's a lot to gripe about, including how the economy is being managed and on whose behalf - but in this context of jingoistic "Ameristan" comments emphasizing the middle name "Hussein" and so on, I think there is good reason to see racism at work.

That's not all that's wrong, of course. Take the photo of a Texas woman proclaiming, "I'm a proud right-wing extremist." Or the anti-welfare "distribute my work ethic" or "free markets not free loaders".

This could go on all day, but maybe in closing we can pause to ponder the sly, "Don't tax me, bro."

Same Song, Different Day

Can you name the song?

Here's another observation similar to mine about Texas below, this one from the University of Mississippi, where I went to school - and used to write about "Neo-Confederates" in the student paper once upon a time.

Atkins is absolutely on the money that, "The recent spectacle of Corker, Shelby and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky leading the GOP attack on the proposed $14 billion loan to the domestic auto industry -- with 11 other Southern senators marching dutifully behind -- made it crystal clear. The heart of Southern conservatism is the preservation of a status quo that serves elite interests."

And, "Expect these same senators and their colleagues in the U.S. House to wage a similar war in the coming months against the proposed Employee Free Choice Act authorizing so-called "card check" union elections nationwide."

These guys are completely unreconstructed in essence. I remember a study a friend of mine at Mississippi did of proposals for economic development in the Delta region: the big land-owners opposed it, even though they themselves would have profited as much as - actually much more than - the sharecroppers and reserve army of the barely employed. Why? Because it would have brought increased social mobility for the local downtrodden, who might begin to entertain some crazy notions of going to school or running off to Memphis, or Chicago... or just that there might be other options for them than modern serfdom.Excellent point.

And to wit, Atkins says, "In their zeal to destroy unions and their hard-fought wage-and-benefits packages, the Southern senators could not care less that workers in their home states are among the lowest paid in the nation. Ever wonder why the South remains the nation's poorest region despite generations of seniority-laden senators and representatives in Congress?

"Why weren't these same senators protesting the high salaries in the financial sector when the Congress approved the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street? Why pick on blue-collar workers at the Big Three who last year agreed to huge concessions expected to save the companies an estimated $4 billion a year by 2010? These concessions have already helped lower union wages to non-union levels at some auto plants."

Excellent point - that only a commie pinko would make - like his others. Keep an eye on these clowns in the Southern caucus, they're up to serious skulduggery.

Texas secedes again

Fifth time's a charm?

In 1822 a bunch of white Americans from the Southeast, proto-Texans, left the US and crossed the Mississippi River and essentially re-introduced the institution of slavery into northern Mexico. In 1829 Mexico outlawed slavery, but gave the white slavers in the state of Coahuila y Tejas special dispensation until 1830. (The abolition movement was growing around the world, and slavery was abolished in the French Revolution - although Napoleon brought it back briefly - was outlawed in the British Empire in 1833, and so on.) Against this worldwide trend, early Texans seceded from Mexico in the so-called "Texas Revolution" (more accurately a Reaction) in 1835-6. Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and Sam Houston are still revered in the US as heroes of that war for slavery.

The American ex-pats of the Texan Republic soon joined the US - no shocker there - but a generation later left the US again in 1861. It was over slavery again (which wasn't strictly under threat in the US at the time, but slave states felt challenged by the election of Abe Lincoln, a moderate in that he opposed expansion of slavery - the slavers' bluff had been called, essentially).

After the war, black and Latino Texans faced regular atrocities from the Ku Klux Klan and the revered Texas Rangers (not much like the Lone Ranger), as well as Jim Crow laws and so on. In 1954 when Brown v. Board of Education banned racial segregation in public schools, the governor called out the Rangers to impede black students. Racist resistance continued through the 1970s - a kind of running secession from the trend toward civil rights and equality that was sweeping the world. "White flight" from cities in Texas - as elsewhere - represents one facet of this subtler, but no less racist neo-secession.

There's a connection here to anti-immigration movements, like the Minute Men (a kind of continuum between US Border Patrol and American Nazis - but that's for another time.

Now yesterday, with the recession growing and the threat of federal "expansion" of officially-defined unemployed (most people who aren't working don't count, rather conveniently) Texas governor Rick Perry turned down $555 million to bailout the state's sinking unemployment fund - which the state's own Workforce Commission chair says could be in the red in seven months.

"During these tough times," he says, "Texas employers are working harder than ever..." blah, blah, blah (my emphasis). What about Texas workers, being canned by the hundreds of thousands every week?

Perry's not alone, of course, which is what suggests there's a new wave of genuine neo-secessionism in the birthing here.

context & thanksgiving

Context, as they say, is all-important.

That’s probably why the dominant culture generally tends to omit context. Take the Thanksgiving holiday for example. Criticism of the holiday often elicits a response from well-meaning liberals (the pro-Chief take on it isn’t worth discussing) that goes something like this: Yes, the apocalyptic genocide of the original Americans was a terrible thing. But that first Thanksgiving was a humanitarian oasis in the midst of the insanity, a time when both populations put aside their differences and shared in their common humanity.